


Save Everything Not Nailed Down

by snarla



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: AU - NeoCity, AU - Noir, AU - crime boys, Excessive Drinking, M/M, Mentions of War, PTSD, Secret Identity, age gap, i guess?, i just got here and i'm old so everyone in their 20s is the same kind of adult to me, vague mention of child sex abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-10-05
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarla/pseuds/snarla
Summary: 4 years on from the end of the War, Taeil scrapes by as a fairly decent private investigator. When he's not surveilling cheating spouses, he works on his personal obsession: the rampaging Robin Hood of NeoCity, known to most as Haechan.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Moon Taeil
Comments: 23
Kudos: 44





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this story is not about real people. it's about my interpretation of several public personas filtered through two or three translations. y'all. i'm just making my Barbies kiss.
> 
> rating will increase to explicit in later chapters.
> 
> thanks to sneaky for the beta and for dragging me into this fandom two months ago. look at us! who would've thought? not me!

It’s always raining in NeoCity. 

Well. It always seems to be whenever Taeil has to leave the safety of his office and do actual legwork. For this one, all his blue-glow screens of information won’t be enough, so he pulls his battered leather jacket on and steps out into the alley.

Before his eyes even adjust to the gloom, the air metro rattles over his head, shaking his teeth, and the first few raindrops ricochet off the cars. Taeil hustles out of the alley before the smell of hot dry garbage, urine, and cigarettes can become the wet--and worse--version.

It’s a twenty-minute walk to the upper district of NeoCity, a passage through a gumbo of rats, drug dealers, sex workers, blaring ad screens. The only change as he moves uptown is in the size of rat, the wardrobe choices of the sex worker, the price range of face creams being advertised. 

Taeil doesn't draw many eyes as he finds his target building and slips behind it. Anyone out on the streets is more concerned with the scramble to gather up hawker tables and food stands before the drops of rain become sheets. No one in the upper district has time for yet another faintly drunk young man, sporting black on black and a--however carefully cultivated--dullard’s expression. 

In the War, deep in the forest, rain meant breeding season, no matter what species you were. Rain was always accompanied by the horny trilling of frogs, the tangle of mayflies or mosquitoes fucking in puddles, the scream of some hormone-addled howler.

Taeil makes his living off breeding season these days.

Sure enough, the window he’s been told to monitor lights up, and he hoists himself up the nearest fire escape opposite, wincing as his camera knocks against the railing. Cushioned by his coat, though. Nothing shattered, nothing bent. A sigh of relief, and then Taeil zooms in. 

It’s Kim Boemsoek all right, a fleshy middle-aged man wearing a watch that could pay a full year of Taeil’s rent. He’s got a young man and a woman all over him, removing pieces of clothing and giggling. Taeil watches until everyone is naked and things get red, wet, and open, and then starts snapping pictures. Each click seems to remove him from the scene by another ten meters, until he’s past the mesosphere. A passive machine, a bloodless satellite capturing flashes of cocks, nipples, mouths.

When Taeil came back from the shit, while everyone was returning to university or using their hazard pay to start a business, he slept on Yuta’s couch for weeks and cultivated his orbit. Each morning he would turn on all three TVs and watch. First came the parades and the victory celebrations, then, as the country forgot, the soap operas and the game shows, the Where Are They Nows, the medical gross-out hours. Sometimes Yuta would prod him to eat, but mostly Taeil would sit and think about the floating purveyors of information, the signals from space.

 _You can do whatever you want_ , Yuta would say. _What do you want_?

Taeil snaps half a dozen more pictures, forgoing the come-shot because he’s not an animal, and sends them to Mrs. Kim. By the time he’s clambered back down to the ground, there’s a fat deposit in his bank account. Mrs. Kim freed, at last, from her prenup.

Halfway home, Taeil stops at his favorite tiny pizza joint/convenience store for some food and another handle of whiskey. While in line to pay, he gets a chime from his phone. 

**unknown:** alley behind Sprinkles one hour

 **you:** mango?

 **unknown:** obviously

He grabs a bag of dried mango slices with added vitamin C ( _for your HEALTH!_ ) and goes to the back of the line.

Yesenia has been dishing on her clients and anything else she sees for almost a year now. Taeil got some dirt on a cop who jammed her up, basically doing her overworked public defender’s job for him, and since then he’s gotten more information about sex trade and criminal networks than he ever could’ve gathered alone. She likes that he never comes on to her; he likes that she’s honest and doesn’t judge him. One night they sat on a rooftop together, talking about leaving the city and looking for stars. There weren’t any. There never are. Yesenia spun a long, comforting fairytale about marrying some man who could take her south, let her get fat and have a dozen raucous children in a house with some actual green things around. Things that aren’t grown in the solar plant by the phyllengineers. 

Yesenia is smoking behind Sprinkles, the VR bar and brothel. She holds her hand out for the bag of mango, and he slaps it into her palm. Only then does she smile, put her cigarette out against the wall, and start talking.

“Okay, so,” she says, “I’ve been listening and asking, but there are five hundred different answers for every question. Which ones do you want to hear?”

Taeil shrugs, pulling at the bottle of Coke and whiskey he’d mixed up. “The ones that seem the most plausible? I guess?” 

He folds a slice of pizza in half and shoves it into his mouth, chews, waiting.

Yesenia finishes a handful of mango and stretches, a series of pops creaking out of her back.

“They think it’s either a woman or a teenager, a boy. The sightings that don’t come from junkies say shortish, slim, flexible, and fast. Just doesn’t seem to be some beefy Batman type. One of my girls said she was arrested, halfway to the cop car, when, swear to god, Plena Luz came swooping in from a rooftop. The cops thought they were bullets, but they have to have been rubber or paint. The cops were scrambling and my girl slipped the cuffs and ran.”

“A teenager?” Taeil says. “Can’t be. There have been stories going on five years now.”

Yesenia shrugs. “It’s just what I’m hearing. Two of my clients spent half their paid time bitching about how Plena Luz hijacked one of their cash-carrying armored cars, and word is that money somehow made it to the sub-district twelve slum.” She lights another cigarette. “But if some thief is handing out cash to poor folks, I have yet to see any of it.”

“Can you tell me the names of the clients whose armored car was held up?”

Yesenia glances around, but the street is empty save for a singing drunk, swinging from a lamp pole. “I’ll text you from my burner,” she says.

Taeil nods. “That’s a start.”

Yesenia pulls a long drag from her smoke and cocks her head at him. “Hey, why do _you_ care about Haechan anyway, Taeil?”

Haechan. Plena Luz. NeoCity’s Robin Hood. Well, purported Robin Hood, probably just another criminal who’d eventually be brought up on some kind of charge and given yet another harried public defender. Said public defender would then send a file of scattered and dubious information to Taeil and ask for him to track down whatever the opposite of a smoking gun was. So yeah, that’s part of it, but.

“It’s a mystery, Yesi.” Taeil says, “I like mysteries.”

Yesenia nods. “Suit yourself, Moon Taeil. Whatever gets you off.”

She tucks her mango in her handbag and sets off down the alley, long clicking strides on high heels.

Taeil shuffles back to his office/apartment slowly, chewing. His clothes are soaked through, and he pulls his jacket and shirt off and lays them out on the bench in front of his dusty upright piano. The spider plant Doyoung gave him less than a month ago has died, but he refuses to acknowledge it. 

He plugs the names Yesenia texted him into his computer and starts the search. He drinks, and he reads business journal articles about the company Haechan robbed, taking careful notes. The work, the search, is one way Taeil shores up his armor plating so maybe, just maybe, the nightmares don’t touch him tonight.

...

A sharp rapping at the front door of Taeil’s office wakes him so suddenly he almost falls off the couch. He yells “Coming!” and dashes to his studio apartment in the next room to splash some water on his face and make sure he doesn’t look too hungover. Doesn’t do much for the shadows under his eyes, but it’s some semblance of professionalism. Taeil hopes he doesn’t smell like brewery waste and reaches for the doorknob.

There’s a boy in the doorway, arm raised like he was about to knock again. Not a boy, exactly--a young man. His soft expression and wide eyes spell too young for the draft, though, and that means he might as well be an infant. A fetus. 

Taeil steps back from the door, collects himself, and says, “Moon Taeil private investigations?” as if he’s not sure himself.

The young man’s face breaks into a shy smile, and Taeil can see faint tracks in his makeup, like he’s been crying. “I certainly hope so,” he says, a bit of a rasp in his voice, and steps inside.

He’s in all black, a turtleneck, a suit jacket, an obvious mix of very expensive old and very cheap new. An artist’s clothes. He’s clutching the strap of a messenger bag close to his chest.

“I think I need your help,” he says. “Can I sit down?”

Taeil waves to the wingback chair in front of his desk. The kid slips easily into it and squares his shoulders, giving himself a tiny shake. He’s got a frame like softened wire, like he bends easily.

Taeil pokes at his computer until the audio recording application comes up and says, “Go ahead.”

The kid takes a long and shuddering breath. “My name is Lee Donghyuck,” he says, “I sing at Nexus, to pay the bills, you know, and we’ve been having kind of a problem…”

Singer, then. Nightclub type, but a classy nightclub, just on the edge of the upper district.

Dust motes dance in the shaft of sunlight that pierces into Taeil’s office, settling on Donghyuck’s hair. It might be silver-ashy; it might be honey-colored. The overall effect is pretty, soft. Who thinks to walk around NeoCity looking soft and lovely? It’s stupid, and it’s not safe. 

Taeil’s heart makes an abortive jerk sideways just thinking of it. 

“...and for several weeks now, this creep has been showing up to leer at us. When he gets drunk, he gets grabby. He’s followed Jaemin home at least once. One of the other boys threatened to go to the police, and then never showed up for work again.”

Donghyuck takes a second to brush fingers under his eyelids. They come away wet.

“He’s rich, and he’s powerful, and I’m sure it’s just going to get worse,” he continues. “He’s been out and about more these days. Premiering some painting that all of high and high-ish society is obsessed with, so they have just Got to be seen at the clubs with him.”

Again, Donghyuck swipes at his eyes. A tiny smudge of mascara darkens his fingertip. “He probably owns half of the buildings in the lower districts. The cops don’t care, and the club owner is next to useless. We truly have nowhere else to turn. Is there anything you can do?”

The pounding hangover behind Taeil’s eyes fades, just the tiniest reprieve. The kid has a rosebud of a mouth, pleading eyes. His feet are scuffing at the carpet below him.

Donghyuck is not Taeil’s usual clientele. Taeil works for defense attorneys, jealous spouses, mid-level corporations concerned about espionage or employee poachers. Young men do not show up at his shabby office and ask to be saved. Sure, Taeil has enemies: Kim Boemsoek now, probably; a couple of crooks he’s exposed; the entire police department and nearly every prosecutor in town. But who among them would know _this_? This specifically? 

“Maybe,” says Taeil.

Lee Donghyuck leans forward and lays his hand on Taeil’s wrist, and Taeil realizes, much too late, that he left his shirt on the piano bench last night. He’s in nothing but a vest, and the goosebumps climb up his arm, visibly.

“Thank you,” Donghyuck says, eyes shining.

Taeil extracts his hand and puts it carefully in his lap. Taeil is in orbit. He only observes.

“I said maybe,” he says, and Donghyuck tilts his head and chews on his bottom lip, obviously trying not to grin.

“Still,” Donghyuck says. He won’t break eye contact. It’s starting to sting.

Taeil looks away first and grabs for a pen and a notebook. When he looks up, Donghyuck has settled himself back into his chair and is digging through his black bag. He comes up with a wad of cash and his phone.

“I hope this is enough,” he says, and places the cash on Taeil’s desk. “All the boys pitched in.” 

Taeil doesn’t count it; he doesn’t even look at it.

Donghyuck plucks one of Taeil’s business cards from the little stand on his desk and taps furiously at his phone.

“I’m on at ten tonight, at Nexus, you know it,” he says. “He’ll be there, definitely, and I’m pretty sure if you tell Lucas at the door that you’re my guest you’ll get in, just this once. He owes me.”

He flicks his hand dismissively, pokes at his phone one last time, and slides it back into his bag.

Taeil’s computer lights up with a notification of an email and attachments. He should open it. He should get started. This job seems rather above his pay grade, and he can’t waste a second. But Donghyuck is pushing his hair back from his smooth forehead. He’s craning toward the door to Taeil’s apartment, left open in haste, and Taeil can see a constellation of moles on his neck.

“Do you like music?” Donghyuck says, and nods at Taeil’s old dusty piano, visible through the door.

Taeil opens his mouth, shuts it, tries again. “Once,” he says.

“Ah,” says Donghyuck, not mocking. Not exactly. But maybe close.

He stands up and swings his bag over his shoulder in one fluid moment.

The pen drops from Taeil’s hand and clatters softly on the desk.

“I’ll sing one for you then,” Donghyuck says, and turns, and then he’s gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still not real.
> 
> There are two incredibly vague one-sentence mentions of past Donghyuck doing what he considered to be sex work because he needed money, but what was actually child sex abuse because he was a minor who couldn't consent. Please take care of yourselves and don't read if this will harm you.
> 
> Thanks again to Sneaky for the beta.

The email is nothing, just a name, “Kan Namgi,” and an article about the sculpture from his private collection that will be premiering at the NeoCity MoMA in ten days. Mid-century, Armenian, apparently some big deal. Taeil doesn’t know visual art from his ass, but even he can see that there’s something to the intertwining jet-black figures that makes you want to look again. Sculpture, not painting as Lee Donghyuck had said. It might’ve been a mistake. 

To Taeil’s fortune, there’s all sorts to find out about Kan Namgi on the internet. He doesn’t even have to delve into the databases that he’s definitely not supposed to be able to access. Kan is a standard disaster capitalist, made the millions his parents left him into billions and then trillions during the war. Cheap real estate converted to factories and server farms for drones, and then switched straight back into sardine housing after the victory. He owns buildings in five of the twelve sub-districts. The closest he’s had to a scandal was a minor securities scuffle three years ago, all smoothed out. The internet has pages and pages and pages of pictures of him with actors, singers, CEOs, glittering people from dozens of countries. There is no report of an employee of Nexus going missing. Not anywhere.

Kan is a neat man, brushing fifty but lean and clever-looking. Wolfish, maybe, if what Lee Donghyuck said holds any merit. Taeil saves several pictures of his face on his phone: a head on, a left profile, a right profile, and a close up of ear shape.

Then the easy part is done, and Taeil turns to the wad of cash sitting on his desk. It’s enough for two days of work, maybe three. The squares of sunlight on the floor of his office have shrunk. It’s past noon, and he has to decide.

He could leave his machines and go out into a world that he doesn’t really know anymore, if he ever did. The world where people flirt, and dress well, and dance at clubs with rich people who never go below the Fourth district. Where lovely young men sing, _to pay the bills, you know_. He could.

 **you:** anything new?

There’s no answer from any of the four burner numbers he sends the text out to, so he scrubs his hands through his hair and then scrolls down to tap at Yuta’s name. 

Yuta picks up halfway through the first ring.

“‘Eyyy!”

Taeil rests his forehead against the edge of his desk. Yuta does that these days, forces a jollity he can’t be feeling. Like Taeil is a kind of invalid with something terminal.

“Hey, Yuta. So, uh, do you know what people wear to nightclubs. I mean, these days?”

“Well…” Yuta lets out a muffled groan, like he’s stretching. Frankly, like he just woke up. “What kind of nightclub? Are we talking basement slum impromptu rave or line-around-the-block rich-fuck nightclub?”

“Half-and-half, maybe?” says Taeil, “It’s called Nexus and I know it’s on the edge of the Fourth district, but other than that…”

“Taeil.” For some reason, Yuta sounds overjoyed. “Why are you going to Nexus? Do you--?” He stops, and Taeil can feel him deflate over the phone. “Wait, for work?”

“Yes, for work,” Taeil says.

Yuta sighs. “And here I thought you met somebody. Some rich body.”

Taeil winces. “Not exactly.”

Yuta doesn’t hear it, or doesn’t acknowledge it if he has. “Nexus, fuck me, okay.”

Taeil pulls at a string that’s worked loose from his cuff. “Is that...good?”

“Look,” says Yuta, “you’re going to have to at least go to one of the boutiques at Pandora and Seoraksan. Preferably The Emperor, but I don’t know what kind of cash you’re rolling with right now.”

“Do they, like, rent suits?” Taeil asks.

Yuta hangs up on him. 

They do not rent suits.

A tiny severe woman with obsidian hair that seems to be one continuous unit looks sceptical as Taeil enters The Emperor. When he asks for help, however, she dutifully ushers him to a secluded fitting area. The walls are actual wood. Taeil can smell them. 

She comes at him with a double onslaught of measuring tape and questions he doesn’t fully understand, so he settles on just saying “black” and “unobtrusive” and “tonight” until she seems satisfied and disappears back to the front of the store. 

The armfuls of clothes she brings back fit better than anything he’s ever owned, even though they’re off the rack for alacrity’s sake. The least expensive outfit she puts together would take up almost all the cash Donghyuck gave him. Taeil supposes he should care more. He can’t quite find it in himself to do so. 

He digs through the bottom of his travel bag until he finds a tin of stuff to run through his hair, push it back from his eyes, and he’s off the metro and at Nexus by 20:30. The line is halfway up the street.

Taeil shoves his hands in his pockets and leans against the brick of the adjoining building, trying not to think about how he’s a bit too sober to be waiting in a long line. He watches several inhumanly beautiful people and a chef he recognizes from Yuta’s TVs get turned away at the door and feels a knot of unease growing in his gut. He never did take inspections well. When it’s finally his turn to run the gauntlet of the bouncer, he straightens--that old conscript’s attempt to add an inch or two to his height--and asks the tall guy holding a tablet if his name is Lucas. 

“No,” says the bouncer, scrunching up his face and laughing. “Not remotely.”

Taeil tries to quash the swiftly expanding orb of panic, scrambles, and settles on, “Lee Donghyuck told me to say that I’m his guest? Maybe he said something to you? Moon Taeil.” 

The tall man, who despite his size looks about twelve, swipes at his tablet, swipes again, mutters to himself. Taeil is about to give up and beat his head against something for spending hours and cash on a questionable job just because some boy came into his office and gave him the eyes, when the bouncer says loudly, “Ah! Of course. There you are, Moon Taeil. Go ahead.”

There are stairs down to the entrance. Seven. Taeil counts them. He left his camera at home, but he pats at his pockets to make sure his phone is secured, and then the doors slide open.

It’s massive. A glass and velvet amphitheater of a dance floor, ringed all around by slightly elevated platforms, tables, and low, cushioned lounges.

Thunderous music bumps from somewhere; the stage just beyond the dance floor is unlit, empty save for a piano. A Grotrian grand, for fuck’s sake. Skylights overhead, and everything so dark inside that faint moonlight settles on the mass of bodies in the center, ostentatious purples and teals and rose golds. A woman Taeil swears he’s seen on a billboard before is wearing an entire glinting birdcage around her head, doing a dance that’s somehow between tightrope walker and warship armada. Several slender figures in catsuits hold leashes that attach to nothing. And everyone, _every one_ , is beautiful.

Slightly above, the sitting areas are populated by older people who don’t seem to be battling for attention. The money men. Taeil moves as casually as he can around the edge of the floor, splitting his focus between long stares at the glittering dancers and quick evaluations of each table.

Six men around the first, drunk already, but not boisterously so, deep in conversation in Spanish. At the next table, a couple, watching the dance floor and kissing every so often. The next, another unmemorable collection of business types, listening to a man who Taeil’s almost certain is sub-district mob yell a meandering story.

A young woman breaks free from the tangle of dancers and comes toward Taeil with her hands outstretched. She’s flushed, pinpoint pupils, and she attempts to wrap her arms around him and pull him back with her. He ducks out of her grasp and gently nudges her toward another man lurking on the edge, who is happily dragged into the mass of bodies.

Then. There. At the table closest to the empty stage on this side, a lean man with gray at his temples is tugging a waiter closer to him. Kan Namgi.

Taeil slips into a chair behind and slightly to the left. Nobody stops him. Maybe VIP is assumed if you get into this place. Maybe nobody cares.

The waiter says something, and Kan moves his hand from the waiter’s wrist to his ass. Taeil can’t make out his reply over the bone-rattling music, but it must be a long order. The waiter nods his pink shock of hair dutifully, but Taeil can see him wince as Kan’s hand strays a little further between his legs. 

Taeil recalculates how necessary this job might be. He stays put but eases his ankle back out from where he’d tucked it under his knee and puts both feet firmly on the floor. Just in case.

Kan seems to have abandoned his drink order. Openly, now, he pulls the waiter down to the cushioned bench. He’s got his tongue nearly inside the waiter’s ear, curling a hand around the nape of his neck and urging him forward. Taeil digs his fingernails into the palm of his hand and fights the disgust. (Taeil is a satellite. He observes.)

The pink-haired waiter, pulled close enough that his chin is hooked over Kan’s shoulder, extricates a hand and eases it into Kan’s jacket pocket. Kan keeps up the monologue into the waiter’s ear, oblivious, and the waiter withdraws his hand, holding a black credit card gingerly between two fingers. Taeil relaxes his clenched fists and swallows a wild giggle. Not swiftly enough, apparently, because the waiter darts his eyes toward Taeil.

A split second of deliberation, and pink hair waiter’s face shifts from compliant discomfort into a hugely incongruous shark grin. He winks at Taeil and slips the card up into his sleeve.

Taeil recalculates his recalculations.

The music changes, more of a low roar, and a warm circle of spotlight slowly takes shape on the stage before them. The waiter takes advantage of the shift in mood and escapes Kan’s roving hands to head towards Taeil. Kan’s suddenly more interested in the stage anyway. 

“What can I get you?” the waiter yells over the music. The placard above his right breast pocket says _Jaemin_.

Taeil raises an eyebrow at him. “Cola. With ice.”

Jaemin nods and very deliberately moves the black credit card from his left sleeve to his right hand. “Right away, boss,” he says, and swipes it on the reader attached to his belt. 

“You’ll want to put that back before he notices,” Taeil says, and the shark grin reappears on Jaemin’s face.

“I always do,” he says, and takes off across the dance floor, weaving through the dispersing crowd.

The music fades into silence, and Taeil watches the seats around him fill with some of the dancers, panting and sweaty. Birdcage lady is still out on the floor, motionless now, eyes turned toward the stage. Kan Namgi is similarly transfixed. The whole place barely seems like a club now, nothing like the eighteen-hour raves and borderline orgies that Taeil used to withstand on leave. It’s become a museum. A library.

And then Lee Donghyuck takes the stage. 

There was one day--one morning, really--years ago, when the chaos and stink of the war abated for a while, and Taeil and Sicheng had no assignment. They went out to the river near base camp and waded in nearly to their knees. The heat had lifted at the same time as the action, and the water ran clear and cool under the morning mist. Taeil watched a tadpole amble across the riverbed, tiny stumps of arms just beginning to show, and he thought perhaps if he could stay in that moment forever he might be happy. 

He’d asked Sicheng, “Is there a job where you just stand in the run of the river all day? Maybe look for precious things under the water? If I live through this, that’s what I’ll do. Forever.” Sicheng laughed at him, but it was a kind laugh. They always were. Everything had slipped away before Taeil could preserve any of it, though.

This, Donghyuck onstage, is just like that. Time is sap and everyone is hoping it’ll turn to amber.

Taeil loses the thread of his job and feels something like a spirit catch him, turn his head, and hold it toward the stage. Donghyuck floats a hand up the side of the free-standing microphone.

Some nondescript figure at the piano plays a D minor chord, a C major, and Donghyuck opens his mouth, and he sings.

Taeil spent the entire first eighteen years of his life learning that it’s true what they said: talking about music was like dancing about architecture. So what is it that Donghyuck is singing? It’s a little bit shivering blades of grass pushing through the earth and a little bit of a kiss in a squalid bathroom. It’s a lot of a glass castle and the very last red leaf clinging to a tree. It’s analog, and it’s bluesy, and it hurts.

The spotlight catches at his waist, at his one bared shoulder, and Taeil takes some slow shaky breaths.

Donghyuck is working the room. Must have come by it naturally because he’s not old enough to have practiced how long exactly to hold eye contact, and with whom. But on the last sustained note--a “you,” if Taeil’s rusty English is correct--he breaks from the audience and looks out over them all, a stare into middle distance that doesn’t belong to any single rich fuck in the place. That one is for himself. Himself alone.

A vice in Taeil’s ribs, and he blinks rapidly to clear wetness from his eyes before it becomes something more damning, rips his eyes away. The cocktail napkin on the table before him is shredded. 

He spends the rest of Donghyuck’s set with his gaze fixed on Kan Namgi, surreptitiously taking notes whenever he shifts, gasps, or smirks. But Taeil can’t stop his ears. Pity.

As soon as the Kan leaves, Taeil does too, hanging back just a bit to blend into the throng of people, flailing drunk, breaking heels, hailing taxis. 

If he is a bit slow to ingratiate himself with the concierge at Kan’s apartment building, if he is almost caught, twice, by security when he sniffs around the vault where rich tenants keep their most valuable possessions, if he doesn’t get pictures of the young man Kan managed to cajole back home with him until the deed is done and the kid is leaving his penthouse, rumpled and looking faintly aggrieved, well. Taeil doesn’t think anyone could blame him. 

He doesn’t sleep that night.

...

In the morning, when Taeil has finally returned to his building and changed into commonfolk clothing, made his second pot of coffee, he gets a phone call. 

“When can you meet me today?” says Donghyuck, not bothering with a greeting, “I want to know what you’ve found.”

“Well, I-- There isn’t, I mean,” Taeil says, “I can tell you over the phone.”

Donghyuck makes a sound somewhere between a scoff and a put-upon whine. “I don’t want to use the work phone for that,” he says, “And my own device is iffy on a good day. How about this afternoon? I can be by at 3:00. I’m only one district above you.”

“I don’t...” says Taeil, and casts his eyes around the office. There’s a wild urge to hide, or flee, growing in him. Somewhere neutral, maybe, where his living space isn’t one door away, where he’s protected.

“Do you know Seupeinin Park?” Taeil says, “By the beech trees.”

Donghyuck laughs, “Where the old men play chess, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Well, if you insist,” Donghyuck says.

“3:00 is okay,” Taeil says. “Goodbye.”

He drops his phone like it’s grown spines, then picks it up again and begins to flick through the notes he’d taken on Kan last night. Not nearly enough for a client debriefing. Taeil rubs at his eyes and pours what’s left of his coffee into a plastic cup. Sets off quickly for the building Kan owns in his home district, just three streets away. A tall, grey, foreboding building with few windows. A relic from the war, when bombs were an issue.

In a patchy grass courtyard, a group of raucous children with their hands fixed into gun shapes play an adversarial game. A small girl with braids and new front teeth seems to be the king or hero. She’s picking off the others and is very emphatic about how exactly they should be dying, how gruesome their last wails.

There’s no security, no door code, not even reception, so he slips into the front hall of the first floor and knocks on the first door that he sees. A woman who is youngish but greying slips open the eye-level view slot on the door.

“Are you police?” she says.

Taeil shakes his head. “No, ma’am.”

“What do you want, then?” she says, eyes narrowing. 

Taeil tries for a smile, not too wide, something that might convince her he’s one of them. “I just have a few questions about the building. I live near here and I’m considering moving. My friend suggested this building. The manager’s not in.” 

“No manager,” the woman says, and considers him for a long while, then finally sighs and opens the door.

She’s got a toddler on her hip, a little girl with a running nose and weepy eyes.

“You don’t want to move here,” the woman says. “Your friend got bad information.”

“Why’s that?” Taeil asks, and the little girl breaks into a rattling nasty cough. That wide, open-mouthed, tongue-extended kid cough. Taeil keeps himself from jumping back, barely.

“The rent?” the woman says. “The mold that has Baby sick as a dog constantly? We have to wrap our trash so that even more rats don’t come. We have enough.”

“No super? At all?” Taeil asks.

“There’s supposed to be, but we haven’t heard from him in months,” the woman says.

Taeil frowns. “Thanks,” he says, and heads down the hall to the stairwell doors.

Takes pictures of the sagging stairs, the visible mold. Under the stairs down to the mostly abandoned underground parking lot there’s a brick of coke. Not even anything designer. 

He goes back out to the courtyard of crab grass and sits on a rickety bench, pulls out his phone. Irene probably shouldn’t have given him that NCPD database log-in, but she did because she’s a saint. Probably the only one the district attorney’s office has ever had. He uploads the photo of the man he saw leaving Kan’s penthouse

He’s legal, barely, and has no convictions or even arrests. Just parking fines, paid promptly. 

The children playing in the grass whoop, and the girl running the show takes out three of her opponents from behind one of the two poles that might once have been a football goal. 

Taeil bites his lip, hesitates, then quickly types Lee Donghyuck into the search engine. 

There’s not much, a short list full of the kind of typos that come from an old system, unable to be corrected. Age unknown. Conflicting school records from two different sub-districts list him as either 20 or 21. One ticket for solicitation and prostitution, no time served, as he was a minor. Jesus. 

Known associates include Huang Renjun, Na Jaemin--the shark waiter, grinning for his mug shot, and Lee Mark. 

Lee Mark has a profile of his own, much different. He works for the city in two of the upper districts, parks and recreation logistics. Married to an American, a system architect who has each company he’s done work for redacted. Defense. Has to be. It all seems rather respectable for a known associate. Taeil types Lee Mark’s address into his notes. 

The commotion from the kids rises to a dramatic climax. The girl faces down the last boy standing, an Old West duel. She’s a quicker draw, and the boy dutifully gives a five-star performance of his own death.

The remaining children, scattered around to watch, yell and cheer.

“Why does Grace always get to be Haechan!” says the boy, sitting up from his murder scene.

“Because I’m the oldest,” the girl says. “You’re dead, Copper. Lie back down.”

...

The sun is shining in Seupeinin Park that afternoon, warm honey through the new leaves of the beeches. Taeil finds a little alcove among the stone chess tables and sits with a cup of tea and a sandwich. A pigeon approaches him, and he tamps down a laugh at the hopeful cock of its head. Taeil is carefully picking the crust from his sandwich and ripping it into bird-appropriate pieces when a whirl of color sits down across from him, making him start.

Donghyuck’s face shows nothing of the worry or fragility of their first meeting. He’s got a blaring pattern of flowers on his shirt and sunglasses perched on top of his head. 

“The piano was pitchy, don’t you think?” Donghyuck says, “It was just tuned! Maybe it’s aged beyond fixing.”

Taeil gapes, recovers. “Uh...no, no the intonation was fine,” Taeil says. “Yours was too.” He winces, looks down at the mess of bread crumbs on the table in front of him, and sweeps them off 

Donghyuck smiles, ducks his head, and looks up through stubby eyelashes.

 _Cute_ , supplies Taeil’s brain, and he grimaces once more.

“Thank you,” says Donghyuck. “Your ears were present, even if you couldn’t spare me a look.”

Taeil feels his face burn. “I was working.”

“Of course,” Donghyuck says, nodding solemnly. “Working.” 

Taeil clears his throat and pulls out his phone to open his files on Kan.

“So,” he says, and blanks. Between trying to force the blood out of his face and decide what note to open, he’s completely lost the plot.

Donghyuck puts his elbow on the table and props his chin on his hand, waiting.

“So,” Taeil tries again, “Kan Namgi.”

Donghyuck nods, head and hand moving together. “Yes?” he says.

“So far,” Taeil says, “Not a lot. Nothing immediately sinister in the public record. I couldn’t find any mention of a Nexus employee who’s gone missing.”

He looks close to see if that elicits a reaction, but Donghyuck’s face is open and warm, expectant. Taeil would’ve described it as artless if Donghyuck wasn’t literally a professional performer. You never can tell.

“Uh,” Taeil continues. “He’s a shitty landlord? I went to the building he owns in Eight and it’s a death trap. Mold and rats and no locks. I think there’s a drug operation there, but it's more likely a symptom of neglect, not something he’s specifically involved in.”

Now that does spark a reaction. The warm face across from him shutters, starts to look a bit imperious and cold.

“Asshole,” says Donghyuck, like he means it. Like it’s personal. 

“Last night he took a man back to his apartment,” says Taeil, widening the photo he took and turning the screen toward Donghyuck. “But he’s of age, I checked. And he went willingly, it seems, and left intact.”

Donghyuck reaches a hand out and stops Taeil from opening another picture. “Wait,” he says. “you went to his place? The penthouse?”

Taeil frowns, “Yeah, I mean, it’s standard to--”

“Tell me every single thing about it,” Donghyuck says. His face has changed again, inquisitive hunger, and a humor, maybe. A spark.

“I can send you the pictures,” Taeil says, “I guess.”

A growing unease overtakes Taeil, and he does a perfunctory sweep of the small region of the park they’re sitting in. There’s no one around. Donghyuck wasn’t followed; he’d be able to tell, surely. There’s always the chance of surveillance, but who? And why?

Donghyuck tilts his head, a secret kind of smile spreading across his face. That humor, too. Still there.

“What are you looking for, Moon Taeil?” 

Taeil does not say _I’m trying to decide whether someone put you up to this, or if you don’t even know you’re being used. You have to be. Why are you even here? Why are you even talking to me?_

He says none of this. He sits back on the stone bench and nearly catches his balls under him, hisses.

Donghyuck’s eyes widen, and his smile slips a bit.

Taeil tries to adjust himself without openly grabbing at his crotch.

“Um,” he says. “You know...just…”

“What,” Donghyuck says, “don’t you trust me?”

Taeil bites at the inside of his mouth, looks at Donghyuck’s wide eyes, his smooth face perched on top of his fist. The tanned V of skin where his shirt is open, one button past respectable.

“No,” says Taeil. “I don’t entirely think I do.”

Donghyuck’s mouth opens slightly; he curls his tongue around one sharp canine. “Have dinner with me tomorrow,” he says.

“I-- Wait, what?” Taeil says.

“Come onnnn,” Donghyuck says, pushing at the table, shaking himself a bit. “Don’t be a wet blanket. You’ll have fun. I promise.”

In the middle of shaking his head in disbelief, Taeil somehow says, “Okay.”

Even though Donghyuck has a snarl for a smile, even though this is so far from a good idea, Taeil says, “Okay.”

“Good,” is his firm answer. “And send me those pictures. All of them. I’ll call you.”

Donghyuck stands up and saunters away. Taeil has never seen anyone actually saunter before. He looks down at his hands before he can complete any of the inchoate thoughts about Donghyuck’s long legs, his black heeled boots.

At home, Taeil paces. He lifts the dusty fallboard over the keys of his piano and then closes it.

He chews at his lip, and lifts it again, placing his hands gently where he might play a twelve-tone scale, if he had a mind to. He does not have the mind to, apparently.

That night he dreams, and they’re jumbles of the oppressive heat of the jungle during the worst nights of the War, of Sicheng’s face, of some nameless hands on him. He wakes up to a mess on his sheets.

…

The next evening, Donghyuck is there to meet him at the 5th Air Metro stop, and Taeil wonders, not for the first time, what the fuck he’s doing. He doesn’t have anything actionable to give to Irene, the one DA who doesn’t hate him. If anything actionable even exists. He should be spending this time working. The wad of cash Donghyuck gave him is gone. 

Still, he steps off the Metro, and there’s Donghyuck, leaning sloping shoulders against the railing, wearing a long black coat and a grin. 

“Thought you wouldn’t show,” he says, and Taeil shrugs. He very specifically did not dress for the occasion, but he did show.

Donghyuck grabs his hand casually and pulls him down three blocks, over one, to a set of stairs that lead down to a garden level door. There’s no sign, no one to meet them, but Donghyuck sweeps the door open anyway. A low-lit foyer, and beyond, a restaurant Taeil’s never even heard of before, smelling of red wine vinegar, garam masala, rosemary.

“It’s Indian and tapas,” says Donghyuck, and for the first time since that morning in Taeil’s office, he shrinks a bit, looks uncertain. “I hope that’s okay?”

Taeil stares and manages to nod just before Donghyuck’s face fully falls. A balding staff member comes out of nowhere and takes Donghyuck’s coat from him, hangs it neatly. 

“Are we just expecting two tonight?” the man asks.

“Hm,” Donghyuck says. “For now, but give us some space to stretch out.”

The man nods and leads them on an arabesque through tables and servers to a secluded corner with a long leather booth. He seats them, procures menus out of somewhere, and bows slightly.

The menus don’t have prices listed, and Taeil balks. This kid can’t be rich. His shoes are scuffed, the same ones he’d been wearing twice before.

“Are your parents somebody?” Taeil asks. He knows they aren’t. 

Donghyuck cackles. “I think everyone’s parents are somebody, aren’t they?”

Taeil raises an eyebrow at him.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Donghyuck says, and does that dismissive thing with his hand. “I’m owed a favor.”

Or he's doing a favor. Taeil shakes his head and very firmly orders water.

But then the server returns with a bucket of ice, a massive bottle emblazoned with words Taeil can’t read, and discreetly points to the people who sent it. Two tables away, a slight man with a ski-jump nose and his taller companion wave at Donghyuck, who groans. He doesn’t stop them from coming over, however.

The slight man has a sharp grin and sparkling eyes, dressed like some kind of high-fetish bullfighter, and he walks over with a hand outstretched, pinches Donghyuck’s cheek.

“Yes, yes, thank you,” Donghyuck says, batting the hand away from his face. 

The sharp little man laughs. “Anything for baby Donghyuck!” he says. “When are you going to ditch those bores at Nexus and come work for me? Keep my old men happy!”

“Not today,” says Donghyuck. “Not tomorrow either.” He turns to Taeil and says, “Moon Taeil, this is Ten; Ten, this is Taeil.”

Ten, bows, and lowers his voice, conspiratorially. “Tell your boyfriend I’ll pay him twice what he makes at Nexus.”

Ten’s taller companion has caught up to them now. He tosses his head back a little and laughs when he hears that, but he takes Ten’s elbow, whispers something, and pulls him gently back to their table.

Taeil’s brain catches up as they sit back down, and he says, “I’m not…”

But then the food arrives, plates upon plates of squid rings, sabudana, stuffed mussels, chaat, and cumin egg whites.

Donghyuck offers the bottle, but when Taeil shakes his head and sticks to his water, he doesn’t push. 

Taeil may not be drinking, but he feels as if he’s somehow reached another plane. Everything is candles and smells and food and Donghyuck’s glittering eyes, Donghyuck’s agile hands in the air making shapes as he talks.

He loses track of his surroundings, bombarded by sensations, that above-average situational awareness his drill instructors used to praise him for completely gone. He’s only picking up halves of sentences here and there.

“...wouldn’t sing at the Kingfisher for all the money in the Vatican.” “Been years since…” “Do you like…?’ “Here, try…” “...what Kan gets up to in those slums of his.” 

Taeil finds himself reaching out, catching one of Donghyuck’s dancing hands.

“Hey,” Taeil says, “eat, then talk. You’ll choke.”

For literally the first time since Taeil met him, Donghyuck opens his mouth and has nothing to say. Then he’s dissolving into giggles, clutching at Taeil’s hand and covering his eyes with their tangled fingers.

“Yeah,” he says, when he’s calmed a bit, “sorry, I was just. You know.”

Taeil shakes his head, but he’s smiling. The room has slowed a bit, and Donghyuck’s eyes are warm, and wet, and happy. “I really don’t,” Taeil says, “but that’s okay.”

They eat, mostly quiet from then on, sneaking little glances at each other. The whirl of noise and smells abates, and for a short while it’s the best kind of company. It’s like nothing Taeil has known in years.

Then they’re done, and out into the chilly spring night, and Taeil only has a few seconds to appreciate the peace before he sees a group of young men hanging around at the top of the stairs up to the street. A group--more like a gang, the Dickensian kind, chattering and laughing. They erupt into a roar when they see Donghyuck stepping out behind, buttoning his coat.

The boys, apparently. Taeil can recognize a few faces from Donghyuck’s rap sheet, and there’s Jaemin, propping up another man, clearly drunk. Taeil has the sudden urge to run, to hide, but Donghyuck is taking the stairs two at a time and bestowing hugs, claps on shoulders. The drunk man staggers away from Jaemin and drapes himself over Donghyuck. He looks rather like the mugshot of a Huang Renjun in the database. Taeil slowly ascends the stairs and tries to parse the conversation. They did not fight in the War. They are very young.

Someone is laying out a proposal of an afterparty, promising a jam session and the presence of _all_ the best musicians. 

Donghyuck tucks Renjun’s arm over his shoulders, bracing steadily, but he doesn’t answer. He, for some reason, looks at Taeil.

Taeil doesn’t know quite what to say. What does it matter?

Donghyuck seems to have made up his mind, though, and he says, “Sorry, boys, not tonight.”

Jaemin scoffs. “Since when do you turn down a chance to perform, Hyuck?”

Someone in the tumble of faces Taeil doesn’t recognize smirks at him says, “Ah, what is music compared to love?”

Jaemin snorts. “Hyuck doesn’t love anyone, we know that.”

Renjun lifts his head from Donghyuck’s shoulder, full of righteous affront. “Hey!” he grumbles, “That’s all wrong! Donghyuck loves everyone! He loves the whole world! That’s the problem.”

“Okayyy,” Donghyuck cuts in, patting Renjun’s face. “Happy drunk, let’s get you a lift.”

Yells all around protest, but two boys Taeil doesn’t know nod and wrangle Renjun away, leading him down the street. The rest slowly disperse and follow, giving Donghyuck final hugs, friendly punches, and in Jaemin’s case, a bite to the neck.

Donghyuck smooths his coat and smiles at them, then turns to Taeil. “You need to get home,” he says, “I’ll ride the Air Metro with you.”

Taeil waits a second for the world to seem less massive, less present. “You really don’t have to do that,” he says.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, and his shoulders shake a bit with swallowed laughter. “Yeah, I know.”

He slips his arm through Taeil’s and starts walking, south, away from the fading sounds of street urchin and toward the train. Taeil falls into step so easily. A scary ease.

There is a moment on the 5th platform, when the whistling air and the crisp night have settled Taeil’s head, where he thinks at any point he could stop this. He has chance after chance to stop this. He doesn’t.

Donghyuck curls a hand around the nearest pole grip on the train and swings slightly. He hasn’t had that much to drink. Most of what they were gifted in that fancy bottle was still there when they left. Taeil grabs the pole just under his hand, and when the train sways, their hands nudge together on the cold steel.

So of course Donghyuck gets off at Taeil’s stop and walks with him. Of course their hands keep brushing as they walk. Of course, when they get to the door, Taeil can’t help himself from asking “Do you. Do you want to…?”

Donghyuck nods and lets himself in the front door before Taeil even finishes his sentence. 

They step into his office, and Donghyuck takes off his shoes in the front hall. He throws his coat over the client couch.

The earth is perilously close tonight.

“Do you want some water?” Taeil says, for something to say.

“No, thank you,” Donghyuck tosses over his shoulder, and meanders into Taeil’s apartment. 

He stops at the piano, runs a finger gently down the carved wooden scroll detail on the music stand. Taeil can’t see his face.

He steps forward once, and then again, and bends a bit to see the small smile spreading there.

Donghyuck sits at the piano, and Taeil comes forward to stand beside him until fixed with a look that’s half pout. Taeil sits on the bench next to him and watches Donghyuck’s hands spread out on the keys, press soft chords. E, A, B. Then he turns, and their eyes meet.

“I used to sing,” Taeil says.

Donghyuck blinks, swallows. “Did you.”

“I know what you want,” Taeil says “I know--“

Then Donghyuck’s clever hand reaches out and grabs a fistful of his shirt, he’s pulling him in and kissing him like a bruise.

Taeil freezes and melts in very quick succession.

He knocks his knee on the underside of the keyboard in his haste to press forward, a star-seeing pain and a breathless laugh. Donghyuck clambers into his lap, eases his hands under Taeil’s shirt, bites very gently at his tongue. There is a coming alive, a coming awake, that shivering blades of grass feeling. There is a tug at Taeil’s spine and a heat blooming.

Fecundity, this he remembers from the jungle, from the War. But never like this. Never.

Donghyuck’s hands are flying, he’s trying to roll himself closer and cram his hand in between them to get at Taeil’s fly at the same time. He’s saying, “Let me. Let me.”

He makes a fluid slump to his knees before the bench and rests his head against Taeil’s thigh, breath coming heavy as his hands touch feather light. Taeil’s past half-hard; Taeil’s close to embarrassing himself. He circles his arm around Taeil’s hips and urges him to the edge of the bench. He drags his head up Taeil’s thigh and meets his hand where he’s pulled him out, a flickering tongue curling around him, urging his foreskin up and then back. 

Taeil puts out a tentative hand and rests it on Donghyuck’s head, threads his fingers gently through his hair and feels tiny damp pricks. Had it been raining? Donghyuck slips his tongue in between head and foreskin, dragging a sweet line around the crown. Kisses gently and then sucks it into his mouth. He’s making soft, hungry whimpering noises. Taeil feels himself pulse just slightly, a small clear droplet surging out. 

For five brief seconds, Taeil is a human. 

Then it slips away.

He claws at a handful of fabric at Donghyuck’s shoulder and shoves, the bench legs shrieking against the floor as he throws himself back. He tries very hard not to look at the soft O of Donghyuck’s mouth giving chase, searching for a wild moment as Taeil scrambles to a stand, and turns toward the wall.

 _One ticket for solicitation. No time served, as was minor._

_A tadpole with stump arms, lazing in clear river water that would soon be pink and fetid._

Taeil fists his hands in his pant legs and tries to wrest back one, any, crumb of control. He tucks himself, aching, back into a semblance of decency.

Taeil gives a few more moments to the wall, hoping that he’ll turn to see nothing but empty space. No dice. Donghyuck is there, very carefully smoothing his rumpled shirt. 

His face has flattened into a cold nonchalance. All his soft hunger is gone. Maybe it never was there. He takes his time righting himself, looking nothing more than bored. He collects his coat, and shrugs it on.

Taeil’s hoarse, so it doesn’t come out right at first. He tries again. “It’s not that--”

Donghyuck looks at him. Imperious.

All the words Taeil might’ve considered leave him. And once again, Donghyuck turns, and he’s gone.


End file.
